Chapter Text
“How could you do this?” A scream, mangled with tears, was ripped from Doug’s very core with the pain of sharp knives. He embraced it. Everything was surreal; all that seemed tangible was the jagged, gaping hole within his chest. Dani stood penitently, her eyes wide and bloodshot, listening to his screams and accepting all that he had to dish on her. Accepting wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t she responding? Why wasn’t she reacting? Why wasn’t she screaming!
“We need you to calm down, Doug,” said a different voice from directly behind him, and as fingers made contact with his jacket shoulder, he whirled around without a thought, socking Scott Summers with a curled fist. The pain that shot up his arm only served to make him feel more alive. He was aware of Dani moving behind him; but all he could feel was his breathing, the ringing in his head, the tears blinding his vision.
Scott got up quickly, a hand clasped beneath his reddening jaw, taking a couple steps back. The free hand moved to the side of his visor, and Doug didn’t bother to brace himself. He wouldn’t mind an optic blast — maybe he’d be dead again, too. It was the position he was best at.
But Scott didn’t fire. His voice was steady, despite the sore jaw. “I understand you’re upset. I accept the responsibility. But for your own good — for everyone’s good — stop. You’ll infect someone.”
That didn’t compute, hyper-lingual brain or not. Until, shaking, Doug looked down at his own arm, the luminescent vein-like stripes on his fist, and saw what Scott was afraid of.
His pain had brought his virus to the surface, flickering out of conscious control. His skin rippled with red patterns and lines — color-coded as the strain of transmode finessed by Bard and focused by Selene, that had brought him back from the dead. The sight meant nothing to him.
“I can’t infect anyone! I can’t hurt anyone! I can’t do anything! That’s my problem, Cyclops!” he shouted, but suddenly he didn’t feel the same high of primal rage he’d clung to. An oppressive wave of desperation crashed into him, threatening to drag his body beneath its tide.
“X-Men files say that isn’t so. I’ve read up on everything since my own resurrection — you subdued a techno-organic being, a technarch, by this means, during your time with X-Factor.”
“Technarchs already have the virus! Just because mine can interface with other carriers doesn’t mean it can do anything to bio-organics like a technarch could — back me up, Dani!”
“Scott, he’s right. If Doug could infect people, it would’ve happened since Selene brought him back — and he hasn’t. Plus, the science team confirmed when he came back to life that he has complete control over his virus. It’s just… visible because he’s grieving, but you can touch him.”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Doug snapped at what sounded like an invitation. His fists clenched to his side, biting into the tide, and without an extra thought he stormed away, unwilling to waste another moment talking to these people. He changed his mind quickly.
The sight of the lawn was angering every time. It wasn’t as nice as the gated New York property once was; pruned perfectly of course — it was still the Hellfire Club — but the grass was a little overgrown, and oh yes, the corpses. The X-Men wouldn’t trust their people with a human-run funeral home, not with how rampant the anti-mutant sentiment had been these days, but the school was gone, and there wasn’t room to store this many bodies in the building without stinking the place up.
It wasn’t the finest outside either, in Doug’s opinion. They should’ve buried them immediately; it wasn’t like they were still around to appreciate the fuss. His teeth clenched into a scowl as he stomped over the earth.
“You’re certain all the Jamies are dead? Because I’ve got a mind to have a word with them!” he kicked one of the identical bodies stretched out on the lawn, not caring if anybody was still listening. He had been buried far too recently for anyone to be ready to deal with any of that.
“It was Dark Beast who did it to them.” Oh, Dani was still listening. Wonders that was the most she could do. “He’s gone now.”
Doug stopped, scowling at his feet as he sunk his teeth into his lip before he cocked his head, mind racing before he could form the speculation into cohesive thoughts.
“And so is Illyana,” he looked back towards Scott’s cautious face now a ways off, a face that still looked entirely ready to fight him across the distance, and he lowered his eyes.
“Depowered. Overwhelmed by the Darkchylde in Limbo,” Dani spoke, and she was much closer now. Doug was feeling dizzy. He should’ve heard her footsteps, felt her warmth… He faced her, wishing to hide his own face suddenly from Scott. His head felt lighter than air — and he hadn’t felt this frightened since the nightmares of truefriend brought him to the brink of meltdown and he’d thought he might kill his own soulfriend.
He turned to her, and somewhere far away from him, his mind was swollen and raw. “Why, Dani?” his voice was as hoarse as his chest, and something began to trickle along his cheek. “I don’t expect anything from him, I know better than that… but why wouldn’t you call me if he was like this?” He couldn’t see. His legs felt ready to give way beneath him. “Didn’t you think I could help him?”
“It was rough, Doug. We were in hiding. We couldn’t contact anyone—”
“Cyclops recruited literally all the other New Mutants! And half of them are now dead because of it!” His voice pitched awkwardly; his vision blurred with light now, high on the energy of his own misery.
“He didn’t go recruiting us for being New Mutants. He saved us from O*N*E.” It was incredible how steady she held her voice, when she was hurting so much, too. “We were all transmode infected, transformed into biological weapons, something I think you can intimately relate to! We stayed with him after, because… we had nowhere else to go, and then because we believed in him. But you weren’t with us when that happened, thank the spirits. With your long history with the transmode virus, who knows what would’ve happened to you?”
Doug’s tears blinded him. He wished he could see her face. But her micro-inflections spoke loudly enough, even when he didn’t care to listen. She was telling the truth.
Half in a daze, his ankle turned, stumbling away from her to Warlox’s body, collapsing in a heap on the grass beside it. His head spun.
“Doug,” Dani knelt beside him instantly, and he felt her arms slither around him, but he shook his head, ignoring all touch of human warmth. The warmth of carbon was all that held meaning to him. It wasn’t right that Warlock should be knotted up in one of Jamie’s dupes while Doug’s awareness slid parallel to this messed up world. The silver mesh beneath his fingers was familiar as it was terribly wrong. The familiarity clashed with emptiness and the experience was disconcerting.
He sunk his mind into the remains of his soul partner. It was all he could do. He remembered when he’d first returned to life, how difficult it was to express himself in a way that didn’t disconcert his friends, but Warlock had never once felt uncomfortable around him. Warlock never doubted that he was still Doug. Warlock understood. The local social constraints were too small for either to fit easily, and the language they shared no one else was capable of understanding. Maybe it was Doug’s imagination that he felt traces of their language now.
“Doug, I’m here,” Dani, like an echo, like a whisper on the wind, didn’t give up. She didn’t leave him, even as in his mind he almost left her.
Doug’s voice sounded hoarser than ever. “You can’t bury him. He has a piece of my soul. And I have a piece of his. You can’t put him in with those other dupes.”
“I know, we won’t.” Dani’s arms held him, regardless of stiffness. She’d long since learned to put up with his oddities, and the way his body language departed to his mental library when his own feelings became too much, but he really didn’t want to be held now. “He’ll get his own headstone, Doug, while his real remains will be interred in an unmarked spot to prevent any Phalanx tampering. It’ll be what he’d want.”
“He wouldn’t want to be dead,” Doug sobbed, burying his hands into the techno-organics knit with flesh. It was just the way they used to be. “I don’t even know what happens to technarch lifeglow when it dies.”
“Well, he has a soul,” Dani said softly. “I’d imagine the same that happens to any soul.” Her arm had softened about Doug’s shoulders, holding him there gently as she pointed up at the sky, as if he might still look and see his friend there alive and whole. What a letdown. “He walks the long fork of the Milky Way, Doug, free from all the darkness that took him from us. He’s at peace.”
“You think that’s what happened to me?” Doug let out a scoff, turning sharply away from her. Dani was for a moment silent, and a dim part of him felt guilty. She’d been trying to comfort him.
“I don’t know what happened to you. You never talk about it,” she professed.
“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath, dropping his head in his knees, and Dani drew him close, rocking him slightly as she whispered he would be okay. It wasn't a comforting action, but he could read the kindness in her gesture. She was almost as bad at sharing comfort as he was at receiving it. He swallowed and tolerated it, and turned aside his consciousness, towards the techno-organic flesh beneath his bio-organic hand, searching desperately for what he knew he wouldn’t find. Warlock.
00101101011101000101.
The buzz of the language kept his mind occupied. They stumbled into a mournful silence, as Doug stared masochistically into the twisted half-face of his selfsoulfriend spliced with Jamie, and he was sure that the sight didn’t leave him even when his tears made that technically impossible. Maybe it was their soul connection. Maybe it was their love. Maybe they were so damn entwined in life he could feel each imprint and curve through the commonality of the virus, off or on.
The virus. The curse and the blessing — the enigma that Doug translated easily but could not rationalize. He wondered if the virus had anything to do with the numbness that formed its way and hardened like a scab between the wound of his grief and the realism of it. Nothing seemed quite real. Regardless of how they’d assured Scott, it was hard to know the difference between the virus and himself. Maybe it impacted nothing; maybe so much more. He wondered if without it he’d be holding himself together at all.
Dani sat with him for hours, but of course she had better things to do than babysit Doug. They needed to expedite services for the loved ones who had yet to be buried, not to mention straightening everything else out related to the X-Men suddenly returning only to be packed inside the Hellfire Club. Doug knew he should follow her inside, but he couldn’t bring himself to gather up that initiative. No one pressured him to leave Warlox, even as the sky was changing shades.
Time had long since blurred into the realm of fantasy when he heard heavy footsteps padding across the grass. Sam’s gait. The taller man sat down heavily beside him, and Doug didn’t bother to look up.
The silence meant Sam was struggling to come up with words to say, even though he’d had all the time he wanted walking over to him. Sam was holding up badly. Doug didn’t care. Warlox was a sight to see. Doug’s hand was buried in the jungle of techno-organics, still seeking out any trace of consciousness. There was none to be found, he already knew it; but it wouldn’t stop him looking.
“I hear you’ve been sitting out here all night,” Sam ventured, and Doug could hear the rawness in his voice. He could tell that he’d recently been crying.
“I’m not alright, but don’t worry,” Doug addressed his fears in what he was sure wasn’t a comforting way, but the correct way to deal with Sam.
“Yeah, man, it’d be nuts if you were. What’s that you’re doing?”
“Trying to interface with his transmode,” the words seemed to come to Doug as he voiced them. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Oh.” Sam wanted to ask more. That much was clear from the way his voice pitched. But he chose not to. “I’m so sorry, Doug. I know it means less than nothing from me but I’m sorry I wasn’t here with y’all—”
“That isn’t your job anymore,” Doug cut him off, but in the pit of his stomach he knew it had been building to this, and he knew nothing he could say would make Sam feel any less responsible. “At least you had an excuse, you were on another planet. I was just feeling sorry for myself. I was an addict. I attributed it to my failings when Warlock stopped trying to visit me. Should’ve used my damn power and read the signs.”
“Oh.” From the inflection now, apparently Sam hadn’t known any of this — and it was hitting him hard. Doug wished he had the energy to care about Sam’s guilt complex.
“Bobby, too,” he said instead, looking at his face, and Sam’s expression darkened.
“Bobby, too,” Sam’s voice broke slightly in contrast to the scowl, proving his own fragility, and he inhaled sharply, tilting his head upwards in an obvious measure against gravity and tears. “I was still with X-Force when I heard the X-Men were gone, and all I could think was I was glad Bobby at least wasn’t with them. Then I was back in space, and I didn’t find out what happened to him till… Ororo sent out the message. I didn’t stop to pack. It’s like my heart’s been torn out. I reckon you know what I mean.” Sam’s hand landed on Doug’s shoulder, but Doug could tell by the gingerness of the gesture that he was careful not to touch his skin. “They deserved better,” Sam murmured softly, a sob lingering behind his voice barrier. “Poor ‘Yana. Poor, poor Rahne. And poor Locke; they sure made a mess of you.”
“I’m going to kill them, Sam,” Doug informed softly. He didn’t look at him; he couldn’t deal with the influx of information overload that’d come with his judgement. His hand sunk incrementally deeper into the techno-organic alien chest.
“Who are you gonna kill?” Sam’s voice was gentle; he was trying not to judge, to all the success anyone had ever had with that venture.
“Anyone working with Callahan. All of O*N*E. Anyone remotely responsible for the Sentinel program. Everyone,” Doug’s voice came out a little flat. Sam was to provide the appropriate emotion. But he wasn’t sure if he could take it.
“Understandable,” Sam paused. He actually wasn’t remotely as judgmental as Doug would expect, even though those notes were there in those teary inflections. “Because it’s either that or keep feeling this rotten feeling of empty, right? But Warlock wouldn’t want that. You know he wouldn’t want you to be a killer in his name.”
“I’ve asked him to be a killer in mine,” Doug felt his own voice break unexpectedly, tears blinding him again at the memory of what a bad partner he’d been — he’d hurt Warlock horribly without even considering the toll. He’d been sorry it had to happen, but he hadn’t felt guilty he’d done it. Maybe he couldn’t feel guilty. Maybe that was a weakness he’d come back without. The tears came harder.
“That’s different: that was a hard call, but you made it to save lives,” bless him, Sam at least seemed to think he knew what Doug was talking about. He felt strong hands gently massaging his upper back. “How would you feel if he’d responded like that after you died? If you found out he’d went on a murder spree?”
“It’s not murder if they deserve it,” Doug said staunchly, and Sam shook his head; Doug couldn’t see it, but he felt it through the trace movement of his hand.
“It’s murder if they can’t defend themselves. It’s murder if it ain’t a fair fight at the time. I think maybe the reason you told me this instead of just doing it was because you needed me to talk you outta it… am I wrong?”
“I’m not going and doing it now because I can’t leave him. Not like this.”
Sam nodded sadly; gently. That he was thinking deeply was clear in his every slightest gesture. He didn’t think Doug was dealing well — which was probably preferable to him thinking he was a psychopathic killer. Sam was always an optimist when it came to people, a hope for the best and prepare for the worst kind of guy.
“You’re gonna catch cold, Doug,” Sam’s voice was soft when he spoke again after nearly a full minute of mournful gazing. “I know that’s the last thing on your mind. But this feeling, this horrible knowledge, that this ain’t right, like you can’t never be whole or happy again… this is how you know… all of us are meant for more… we gotta keep fighting. You ain’t alone. You’ve got me, and Dani, and Shan when she gets out here. Warlock’s not here, and I ain’t asking you to make peace with that now. But you are fearfully and wonderfully made, Doug, you are made to keep fighting.”
“Maybe he’ll come back again with my adolescent personality,” Doug mused wryly. As if that code was any better protected when he was deconstructed into a bioweapon in the service of those who saw all mutants as potential bioweapons.
“Maybe,” Sam said quietly; he didn’t believe it either. “There’s always hope for a miracle. We got you back, Doug.”
Doug shivered at the memory, and suddenly he felt very cold inside. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
He heard the softest sound that could be interpreted as teeth sinking straight into Sam’s tongue. He knew the kshh of regret.
“I know.” Sam rubbed his back gently, until he was able to speak clearly again. “It’s okay not to be able to deal with this. Let me carry as much of it as I can. Just for a little while. Come inside, Doug.”
“I won’t leave him,” Doug repeated fervently while his stomach desperately curled. Warlock was gone — yet so long as Doug’s hand was there, so long as he was searching, he had that layer of purpose. The basis of language — to decode, to solve, make things make sense. And Sam was silent now, obviously debating his choices. Would he suggest bringing the body inside? It was only one Jamie… and they’d only been dead for about a day and a half… Sam couldn’t know what Doug’s essence through the transmode was touching the infected bio-organics, or that the transmode throughout the body kept it better preserved than the rest.
“What’s your plan?” Sam asked, softly.
“To stay with him forever,” Doug responded, bitterly knowing how unfeasible this was and bitterly not at all caring, “and after that, kill some mutant-killers.”
Sam examined him with an expression of deep worry etched all across his face. The tension flavored every fraction of his form. He shouldn’t have to feel that way. He was grieving himself, and he already carried too much of the weight of the world on his shoulders. Doug almost wished he’d been less direct.
Sam’s deltoids relaxed minutely with the focus of decision. “Alright,” he said at length, standing up with a ruffle of Doug’s hair. “I’ll get us some blankets.” He lingered a moment, in a silence that spoke volumes. Then he strode away towards the Hellfire building.
Doug’s thoughts deepened into Warlox as Sam’s footfalls faded up the steps. The biomechanical incubation that had been made of Jamie’s cells was irksome; it was a merge that went contrary to the technarchy code, and whatever Dark Beast had done to them, he had begun with a Warlock that was already twisted inside and out. Doug wished he had the luxury of wondering what sick kind of demented rationale could be used to do this to another being in the name of expediency. It made him no less angry that he knew.
His psyche combed his partner’s remains, and touched currents and rivers where familiar pulses once ran. There were no more slivers of Warlock’s essence, his self, but Doug could still trace the outline of their union, and that was just enough to see no reason ever to stop.
His vision blurred with tears, but that was alright; sight wasn’t the sense he leaned on as he pulled in closer, closer, tighter. He felt the shift from his raw, throbbing, hurting heart. He wanted to curl around the source of the pang and never move away. And then, he…
The feeling wasn’t describable in English, nor any other modern language spoken by humankind. It felt right — as close to right as could be. The motion was natural, coaxing the techno-organic fibers that creeped up his arm, softly hugging his cells and providing new dimension to them all. His eyes closed, and he inhaled deeply beyond his control, hunching over the body of Jamie.
He lifted his arm in a swift arc and closed his fist, flexing his bicep and allowing the domino effect to wash from it in both directions, through nodes up over his shoulder and cascading down the tips of his fingers. It didn’t stop there. The feeling throughout his body was neither chill nor warmth, and his senses were awake as they had not been in a long time. He felt tears well at his eyes as he wanted to be overwhelmed; the sensation crackling through his entire body was so intense after the day he’d had he wanted to sob. But he didn’t have it in him. And it wasn’t enough. And he wanted so much more.
His hand glimmered black and gold as it drew near to the little dandelion blossom in peeking through unkempt grass, and he touched it with an index finger.
His heartbeat raced. It was his first experience that he’d never have had if Warlock was still here, alright. Warlock never would have done it. Doug did it because he wanted to feel close to Warlock. And for an instant, he did, and he was amazed. He watched the thin yellow petals transmode into their carbon residue. He touched the coppery frame with his own coppery nail; he could almost see the flower’s lifeglow through a sense beyond sight. It was so bright; so beautiful, and the rush of energy hopped when he absorbed it — small, negligible maybe when it came to providing strength — but it felt incredible.
It wasn’t entirely foreign to him. He’d seen this aspect of living in Warlock’s memories, albeit in the abstract perspective. It felt familiar, as all of this had. But he’d never done this before — not when he and Warlock were soulmerged, the only time it would’ve been possible.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, his breath of a voice riding the tide of its revelation, and his heart ached with the longing that there was someone with whom he could experience it. He cradled his arm in his other arm, all that was left of his companion, and he wished miserably that he wasn’t alone.
It hadn’t been long before the heavy door creaked open, as Sam stepped back onto the grass. Doug had no need to look up. He heard the distinct rustle of cotton and knew Sam had returned with the blankets. Honestly he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve a friend like Sam, even if the guy could be a little overbearing sometimes. It was legible in his every glance that Sam was always attentive towards the needs of others. He was certainly better at it than Doug, who had the advantage of easily reading what the needs of others actually were.
Doug stood up quickly to save him the trouble. Maybe it was a little too quick because his head spun and his chest jumped, his body gripped in a sensation like colorful static. “It’s okay,” he said preventatively, watching Sam as his vision cleared.
“Doug?” Sam stopped short in the grass, blankets folded neatly over his arms. His eyes were very wide, and every inflection betrayed his barely suppressed horror. “What have you done to yourself?”
“I merged with his remains. I can’t bring him back but at least he lives on in me, sorta. I’ll keep him safe.” Doug considered Sam neutrally, waiting patiently for him to calm down. It was a shock. Sam was a good-hearted guy, he would understand.
“Oh… uh.” Sam nodded, not looking particularly reassured. He stepped closer, his eyes traveling down to the corpse of Jamie Madrox. “Wow, that ain’t a pretty sight. You sure cleaned him up good.”
“Yeah. He’s no more use to me now. We can bury him with the other Jamies, I guess.” It probably sounded callous. Doug just wasn’t particularly invested in appearances right now.
“Cool,” Sam nodded, eyes traveling across Doug. “Does it feel like being Douglock? How long will this be? This ain’t permanent?”
That was too many questions, too fast. “As long as I want. Not necessarily permanent,” Doug answered, “but this is me now, until such point that Warlock returns from the dead and needs his body back. And it’s nothing like Douglock. I’m the only consciousness in my brain.” I’m alone.
“Are you… still homo sapiens superior?”
It was an ignorant question to ask of someone who’d been infected with the transmode virus since even before rising from the dead; who had merged with a transmode being so many times before. But all the same, it was surprisingly apt.
“Do I look still homo sapiens superior?”
Sam nodded, “Well, that’s difficult to define, for the most part, I reckon—”
“I’m still the same, Sam.” As if to signal the full impact of that statement, another, crushing wave of grief and emotion waved over him, his feet feeling like lead, and he stumbled forwards, trying to wipe his eyes with his technarch hand. Sam caught him, but held him slightly aways for a moment, like he needed to look in his eyes.
“Are you ready to go inside now?”
“Yes,” Doug said softly, stepping forward for Sam to drape an arm around his back. The arm pressed against Sam’s jacket and it didn’t seem to bother him anymore — or his empathy had won against his suspicion.
“I’ll get us something warm to drink. Then we can sit on the couch, and talk about them — all the things that made us love them — until we’re too tired to talk anymore, that sound alright?”
“Yeah, alright.” Doug just wanted to curl up under a cover, clutch his arm, and be alone, but even though Sam was pretending like this was for him — the only reason Sam even thought this would be helpful was because he needed it so badly himself. Sometimes Doug wished he couldn’t read people so well. But he was content to listen to Sam.
Sure enough, Sam talked enough for the both of them. He heated up mugs of milk with honey for both of them, and Doug sat beneath the blanket and listened to Sam reminisce and cry and hold onto him tight. The stories, the memories, tugged at Doug’s soul, and he was swept in the tide of longing and loss, fondness and regret.
He felt so drained. He didn’t know why Sam thought this would help. He didn’t understand why Sam needed this. If there was nothing he could do to amend this loss, he didn’t want to think about it. If there was nothing he could do to make it better, he didn’t want to torture himself.
When Sam fell asleep as predicted, empty mug between his fingers, Doug felt no closer to respite himself. In fact, he felt further from sleep than ever. He couldn’t stop thinking about the sincerity in Warlock’s language, the lean in his form, when he told Doug he loved him, that he would always believe in him.
He stood up suddenly. He didn’t know what time it was, but it was still completely dark. He draped the blanket gently around Sam, who stirred, chewing his lip, and turned away, his mind positively racing. He didn’t want to lose a single thought.
He was stopped by Sam’s voice, sleepy and thick.
“Doug?”
Doug turned back to look at him. Sam hadn’t moved, but his heavy-lidded eyes were half open, and he rubbed them with his fist. Half-asleep or not, the question on his face was instantly legible.
“I’m just going to one of the bedrooms, it’s more comfortable. Go back to sleep, Sam.”
“Alright,” Sam’s eyelids fell shut sleepily. “S’long as you don’t run off tonight with a murder plan. Promise me,” he extended a tired hand.
Doug folded his hand against Sam’s, and Sam promptly let his arm drop back by his side, as if reassured. “I promise I won’t do that,” said Doug. He could say that! Because it was nearly three a.m. — sure, it was still dark, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t morning. He wasn’t running off in the night with a murder plan. Promise kept.
Sam nodded, eyelids closing again. He was still half asleep. That was good. Sam needed the sleep.
Doug turned away, the emptiness in his chest tightening into determination. He left his sleeping friend on the couch.